Capitalismhttp://www.fightbacknews.org/taxonomy/term/1581/all
enStocks plunge on COVID-19 fearshttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2020/3/10/stocks-plunge-covid-19-fears
<p>San José, CA - U.S. stocks plunged sharply right after the opening bell and ended more than 7% lower as the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 2000 points, March 9. So swift was the fall that within minutes so-called circuit breakers developed after the 1987 stock market crash kicked in, halting trading for 15 minutes. Stocks tried to bounce back but ended the day lower.</p>
<p>Fear over the COVID-19 epidemic growing in the United States and its economic impact hit U.S. stocks hard as well as stocks around the world. Asian stock markets opened lower, with Japanese stocks down 6.8%. The rout continued in Europe, with the German stock market down almost 8%, and then on to the United States.</p>
<p>Investors fled to the safety of U.S. government bonds. As bond prices rose on the spike in buying, interest rates on the ten-year U.S. Treasury Bond fell to another record low of just one-half of one percent. These record low interest rates show that many on Wall Street are expecting a recession, if not years of economic stagnation.</p>
<p>Another factor pulling the stock market down was the price war that erupted between Saudi Arabia and Russia over the weekend. The Saudis were trying to get Russia to join OPEC in cutting production and boosting prices. The Russians refused and the Saudis promised to increase production. This drove oil prices down 25% in one day, to a low of just over $30 a barrel. This in turn put pressure on U.S. corporate bonds, as U.S. oil drillers have been big borrowers and some of them may default (not pay in full) their debt. This credit market uncertainty led the U.S. Federal Reserve to increase injections of cash into the overnight loan market to $150 billion on Monday.</p>
<p>With more than 700 known COVID-19 infections in the United States, more and more industries are getting hit. Travel-related industries are suffering from cancellations with the hardest hit being cruise lines, airlines, hotels and restaurants. </p>
<p>There are also growing fears that the United States will soon look like Italy, which now has over 9000 infections and is the second largest outbreak after China. Just ten days ago Italy had about the same number of infections as the United States does today. Both the United States and Italy have capitalist economies and both countries responded to the COVID-19 outbreak in the same way: by restricting travel from China. However, both the U.S. and Italy gained a false sense of security, thinking that travel restrictions would keep out the virus, and failed to prepare for an outbreak. In comparison, socialist China has reduced new infections to under 50 for the last two days in a row and is now starting to revive their economy.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2020/3/10/stocks-plunge-covid-19-fears#commentsCapitalism and EconomyCapitalismCOVID-19stock marketTue, 10 Mar 2020 14:50:54 +0000Fight Back7897 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgCommentary: Australian bush fires are a product of capitalismhttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2020/1/9/commentary-australian-bush-fires-are-product-capitalism
<p>Milwaukee, WI - Australia has been burning since early October 2019, with 1020 square miles having been burnt already. The country has been in a state of emergency for nearly three full months, with major cities like Sydney receiving a fire danger level of “catastrophic.” People are flocking to the beaches in fear of the flames because they have nowhere else to go. Aboriginal communities like the Yuin in the town of Mogo are being impacted the hardest. 25 people have been confirmed dead as a result of the fires, and estimates suggest that millions of animals have been killed.</p>
<p>While the occurrence of wildfires is fairly common in Australia, the intensity of the fires occurring is really without precedent. The flames are so massive that, in some instances, they are creating their own weather, with lightning and ‘ember attacks.’ As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, due to Australia’s changing climate there will be more fires to come.</p>
<p>Poor land management has contributed to the worsening conditions. The scale and ferocity of the current bush fires are products of an unprecedented lengthy drought season. But it is the greed of energy corporations and the complicity of officials from both political parties that has produced these unusually long droughts and, in turn, this disaster.</p>
<p>It is not a secret that Australia is inextricably tied to the fossil fuel industry. Illustrative of this is the fact that today coal accounts for 15% of the country’s export revenues, and six of the top 30 largest Australian corporations are mining or fossil fuel companies. Australia’s continued investment in dirty energy has cost the nation thousands of metric tons of CO2 emissions, according to the Australian Department of Agriculture. The ineptitude of Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison towards downsizing the role of coal is a prime example of denial of an issue to the point of propagating it.</p>
<p>Morrison vowed near the onset of the fires back in October 2019 to outlaw the boycott campaigns utilized by climate activists, citing the alleged damage it would do to the country’s mining industry. Activists have been successful in impacting targeted businesses, affecting their ability to access banking, insurance and consulting services. None of this should come as a surprise, given Morrison is a vocal supporter of President Donald Trump and the class interests that he represents.</p>
<p>In addition to their disastrous domestic energy policies, the Australian government has contributed further to the deterioration of the climate through its commitment to U.S. imperialism. Mobilizing to participate in the wars of U.S. empire has emitted untold amounts of harmful waste into the environment. In order to pay for these actions and the equipment for their armed forces, the government has cut funding from vital fire management programs that were underfunded to begin with. Government-sponsored disaster relief efforts and civilian relocation services have similarly been gutted, only exacerbating the problems, particularly for the most vulnerable communities.</p>
<p>In a parallel to the political situation in the U.S., this issue is not partisan. While one wing of the political elite is outright dismissive of the existence of climate change, the other plays lip-service to the scientists and their warnings while doing the bidding of the corporations who get them elected. The reality, both in Australia and in the U.S., is that most of the leaders of mainstream political parties ultimately play on the same side, working in the interests of the ruling class against the interests of the working class.</p>
<p>Issues pertaining to climate change are the product of fundamental components of the prevailing global economic system of capitalism. Capitalism gives economic interests the platform to make decisions in society. It will never work in the best interests of the people being impacted by those decisions. A system that incentivizes economic gains to the detriment of people and planet is problematic and prone toward causing environmental catastrophe. Capitalism holds that obtaining the maximum profit is the driving force of an economy. It is by getting rid of the private ownership of means to produce good and services for the benefit of the 1 percent, that we will be able to avert and resolve the issues of the climate crisis.</p>
<p>The solution to the problem of climate change is not to place the future in the hands of political hacks who have never had the interests of the working class and other oppressed people in their minds. Elected officials will be compelled to adhere to the demands of the masses if we are organized and militant enough. The creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency during the Nixon administration - a reform, yes, but a big concession won from the ruling class as a result of ceaseless mass struggle - is proof enough of this. When the movement against climate change is organized and fully recognizes capitalism as the main threat, it will be able to turn the tide and begin to prevent the kind of cataclysm unfolding in Australia.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2020/1/9/commentary-australian-bush-fires-are-product-capitalism#commentsCapitalism and EconomyAustraliaCapitalismEnvironmental JusticeFireEditorialsThu, 09 Jan 2020 19:17:40 +0000Fight Back7764 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgGovernment report indicates signs of weakness in economyhttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2019/4/27/government-report-indicates-signs-weakness-economy
<p>San José, CA - On Friday, April 26, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) issued its first report on economic growth in 2019. The country’s Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, which measures the total production of goods and services, grew at a 3.2% annual rate during the first three months of the year (January to March). This was stronger than most economists expected.</p>
<p>But much of the growth was made up of one-time events, and inside the report there were continuing signs of economic weakness. The biggest contributor to growth was a large drop in imports. During the second half of 2018 many companies pushed forward their imports out of a fear of an escalating trade war with China. But with Trump calling off his original pledge to raise tariffs on Chinese goods even more and ongoing trade talks continuing, these companies cut back on imports. This drop in imports boosted the GDP report as imports are subtracted from the final number and is unlikely to continue in the future.</p>
<p>The second biggest factor was a large jump in spending by state and local governments on capital projects such as buildings, roads and bridges. This increase is unlikely to be sustained as these projects take a long time to complete and there would have to be an ever-increasing number of projects started to keep this rising. So this was probably another one-time factor.</p>
<p>The third biggest factor was a large jump in inventories. As GDP counts production, if goods are made but sit unsold on store shelves, it counts as economic growth. This is a potential sign of economic weakness if consumers are not buying all of what businesses produce, and could lead to production and job cuts in the future.</p>
<p>Not counting the impact of changes in trade, government spending, and inventories, total private sales grew at a 1.3% rate, only half that of the last three months of 2018. Based on this, most economists expect economic growth to slow for the rest of the year.</p>
<p>Trump and the Republicans in Congress claimed that their 2017 corporate tax cut would lead businesses to increase spending on new plant and equipment, creating more jobs. Business investment did increase at a strong rate in the first six months of 2018, but since then it has slowed. This part of GDP grew at only half the rate of previous quarter (October to December of 2018), a sign of a slowdown.</p>
<p>Another sign of economic weakness was the continuing fall in the construction of new homes, apartment buildings and other residences. This part of GDP has fallen for five quarters back-to-back, and together with business investment, dragged down ‘fixed investment’ to less than two-tenths of one percent, barely above zero. Weakness in business investment or housing construction is what can pull the economy into a recession if their fall is big enough and lasts long enough to pull the rest of the economy down with them.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2019/4/27/government-report-indicates-signs-weakness-economy#commentsPeople's StrugglesCapitalism and EconomyCapitalismChinaeconomyTrumpSat, 27 Apr 2019 16:15:03 +0000Fight Back7391 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgTrump announces all-out trade war with Chinahttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/9/18/trump-announces-all-out-trade-war-china
<p>San José, CA – On Sept. 17, President Trump announced that tariffs of 10% will be slapped on $200 billion of Chinese goods starting Sept. 24. These tariffs will rise to 25% at the beginning of 2019. Trump also said that he would put tariffs on another $267 billion dollars of imports from China if China responds to his tariffs. Along with the tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports already in place, this would mean steep tariffs on virtually all of the $500 billion in goods that the United States buys from China.</p>
<p>China has all along replied to Trump’s tariffs with tit-for-tat tariffs, while calling for negotiations. While it cannot match the United States, as it imports much less than the United States in terms of tariffs, U.S. businesses do have much more extensive business in China that could be restricted. China’s currency has also been falling in value, offsetting part of the price increases that Trump’s tariffs would bring.</p>
<p>The main goal of the Trump administration is to slow or stop China’s modernization drive, which seeks to put China on an equal footing with Western nations and Japan in terms of high technology. This goal of blocking China has wide backing among the big capitalists and both their political parties (the Republicans and the Democrats), even though many disagree with his tactic of a unilateral trade war. This goal, along with Trump’s desire to restore basic manufacturing in the United States at the expense of China, would leave China in the position like many former colonial countries of having an economy based on low-wage labor such as textiles and exporting raw materials.</p>
<p>China’s socialist modernization, along with opening up to world trade, has led to one of the greatest reductions in poverty in world history. China is currently trying to make sure that it is not caught in what is called the “middle-income trap,” where poorer countries make some economic progress but are not able to close the gap with high incomes in the United States, Western Europe and Japan. The Trump administration’s desire to roll back China’s economic progress will never be accepted by China’s government or people.</p>
<p>Many of Trump’s advisors and Wall Street pundits argue that China’s economy is hurting because its stock market is in bear market territory, down over 20% this year, while the U.S. stock market is near record highs. But they don’t understand the basic difference between the two economies. In the United States, with its capitalist economy, the stock market is seen as a key barometer of corporate profits, which drive the U.S. economy. The Chinese stock market plays a secondary role in what is still a largely socialist economy dominated by state-owned banks and businesses.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the impact of price increases for imported consumer goods will fall most heavily on poor and low-income working-class Americans. At the same time the trade war could push Chinese businesses to put even more effort in developing their own higher-technology goods, the very thing that Trump is claiming to oppose.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/9/18/trump-announces-all-out-trade-war-china#commentsPeople's StrugglesCapitalism and EconomyCapitalismChinaeconomyInternationalTrump ChinaTue, 18 Sep 2018 17:38:39 +0000Fight Back6956 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgCapitalism’s impact on mental healthhttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/7/5/capitalism-s-impact-mental-health
<p>New York, NY - On June 5, fashion designer Kate Spade died via suicide. Three days later, chef and TV personality Anthony Bourdain also committed suicide. Along with his TV show, Bourdain was a supporter of Palestine and the #MeToo movement, as well as openly criticizing Henry Kissinger for his foreign policy.</p>
<p>Both cases resulted in a widespread, mainstream discussion about suicide and mental health, but the solution typically suggested is for individual people to seek help via suicide hotlines, going to therapy, and reaching out to friends and loved ones for help. While all of these may help someone in need at that moment, it doesn’t address the larger issues at hand. Here are just some of the ways in which the U.S.’s monopoly capitalist system affects workers here, as well as how inflicts mental harm upon its victims around the world.</p>
<p><strong>Economic basis</strong></p>
<p>Band-aid solutions to mental illness only help remedy the symptom, but do not address the system that is at the root of the problem. Capitalism creates conditions for mental illness and suicide to manifest. From a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, people earning less than $34,000 are 50% more likely to commit suicide, and unemployed people are 72 more likely to commit suicide than employed people. According to the Center for Disease Control, suicide rates are higher in rural areas, where Native Americans and Alaska Natives have the highest rates.</p>
<p>At the same time that capitalism reinforces mental illness, it also limits the accessibility to mental healthcare in the U.S. Over 6.3 million adults with mental illness are uninsured, and even those who are insured still face high costs, such as copays, treatment not covered by insurance, and providers who do not take insurance.</p>
<p><strong>Treating the symptom, not the cause</strong></p>
<p>The ability of working class and poor people to access adequate mental healthcare is limited by a lack of time outside of working hours, as well as an economic inability to afford treatment, even with health insurance. For those that do decide to seek treatment, the costs of such are high and the treatment is insufficient in the long term.</p>
<p>There is a motive for psychiatrists to prescribe medication instead of providing psychotherapy. According to Dr. Daniel Carlat of Tufts University, a psychiatrist can make two to four times more money by prescribing medication than providing therapy. While psychiatric medication can be a necessary aspect of mental health treatment, it is used in a system that prioritizes profit over people while forgoing longer-term treatment that addresses the individual’s particular conditions.</p>
<p><strong>U.S. Imperialism’s effect on mental health</strong></p>
<p>Along with conditions in the U.S. contributing to suicide, U.S. imperialism also is a major factor in mental illness and suicide. In May 2018, a Honduran man named Marco Antonio Munoz killed himself in a Texas jail cell after being separated from his family, who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border. Palestine, which is occupied by Israel with financial backing of the U.S., leads in the Middle East and North Africa region in depression and anxiety disorders, including in children.</p>
<p><strong>Mental health under socialism</strong></p>
<p>Where can we look to in order to find an alternative system to the U.S. healthcare system? Cuba is one example of how socialism can provide solutions to those suffering with mental illness.</p>
<p>According to Sandra Soca Lozano from the University of Havana, psychologists are incorporated into all aspects of healthcare, and psychologists and physicians work closely together. A psychologist will assess medical patients for contributing mental factors, and physicians will evaluate psychiatric patients to look for contributing physical conditions. Since no private organizations offer health services in Cuba, everyone has access to public care.</p>
<p>Due to the restrictions set on Cuba from the embargo, preventative care is emphasized for mental healthcare. This includes all Cubans having annual mental health screenings as part of their primary care (including home visits if unable to go to the office), the ability to access psychologists and physicians in their neighborhoods, and creating their own technology and techniques for detection of mental illness.</p>
<p>A more widespread discussion about mental health and suicide is a positive step, but discussion alone will not solve the problem. In order to fix the broken mental healthcare system, we must fight to overthrow capitalism and ensure that under socialism, everyone will have adequate access to mental healthcare and treatment.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/7/5/capitalism-s-impact-mental-health#commentsPeople's StrugglesCapitalism and EconomySocialismOpinionCapitalismhealth caremental healthSocialismWorkers and GlobalizationThu, 05 Jul 2018 19:04:50 +0000Fight Back6847 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgPeople’s Korea says capitalism “rushing headlong into its doom”http://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/6/16/people-s-korea-says-capitalism-rushing-headlong-its-doom
<p>Washington DC – A June 16 article in Rodong Sinmun, the leading daily newspaper in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) stated, “capitalism is a gloomy society as it has no future.”</p>
<p>The article also noted, “‘Democracy’ being advocated by the imperialist reactionaries is not for the toiling masses, and it is fake democracy for a handful of the exploiting classes.”</p>
<p>“The multi-party system is also deceptive. Various parties are said to take the reins of government by turns in capitalist countries, but those parties are all the bourgeois political ones representing the interests of business tycoons which have different names,” states the article.</p>
<p>The article concluded, “Capitalism is neither a prosperous democratic society nor everlasting one. It is a corrupt society rushing headlong into its doom.”</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/6/16/people-s-korea-says-capitalism-rushing-headlong-its-doom#commentsCapitalismDPRKElectionsKoreaNorth KoreaSun, 17 Jun 2018 04:58:45 +0000Fight Back6791 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgMarx at 200: A renewed interest in the critique of capitalism http://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/5/3/marx-200-renewed-interest-critique-capitalism
<p><em>Editor’s note: Fight Back! will be running a number of articles to coincide with the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx.</em></p>
<p>Karl Marx made enduring contributions to the science of economics. He built upon the work of classical English political economics represented by Adam Smith and David Ricardo. The thought of Smith and Ricardo lives on in mainstream economics and government policies of deregulation and free trade pushed by big business. However the economics of Marx has informed the labor movement and the fight to end the exploitation, giant for-profit corporations, and economic crisis that bear down on the vast majority of working people who struggle to make do from paycheck to paycheck. Marx’s economics still provide insight into the workings of our capitalist economy down to today.</p>
<p>First and foremost, Marx built upon the labor theory of value developed by classical political economy. The labor theory of value sees commodities, or goods and services produced for sale on markets, as having value based on the amount of socially necessary labor time needed to produce them. Marx added to this with his theory of surplus value, which explains that what workers sell to their bosses is not their labor, but their labor power, or ability to work. The value of labor power, seen as wages in the labor market, is based on the socially necessary labor time needed to produce and reproduce workers, or the cost of the goods and services that the workers and their families need to survive.</p>
<p>What is unique about labor power is that its use in production creates more value than it costs. The difference between value of the goods and services created by labor, and wages (the value of labor power) is surplus value. This surplus value goes to the employer, and is the source of profits. This is Marx’s theory of exploitation that can explain the economic hardships of millions of workers who are living paycheck to paycheck while a handful of billionaires who own the giant corporations get rich.</p>
<p>For example, Amazon made almost $2 billion in profit just in the last three months of 2017, while the typical Amazon worker only made $28,446 last year, and half of its workers made less than that. Companies that use a lot of part-time workers can pay even less; the median pay for a worker at Yum brands (which includes KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell) was only $9111. And companies that offshore their work can pay the least, with toy company Mattel paying their typical worker $6271 a year.</p>
<p>According to Marx’s collaborator, Frederick Engels:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">“Ever since political economy put forward the proposition that labor is the source of all wealth and of all value, the question has become inevitable: How is this, then, to be reconciled with the fact that the wage-worker does not receive the whole sum of value created by his labor but has to surrender a part of it to the capitalist? Both the bourgeois economists and the socialists exerted themselves to give a scientifically valid answer to this question, but in vain, until at last Marx came forward with the solution. This solution is as follows: The present day capitalist mode of production presupposes the existence of two social classes -on the one hand, that of the capitalists, who are in possession of the means of production and subsistence, and, on the other hand, that of the proletarians, who, being excluded from this possession, have only a single commodity for sale, their labor power, and who therefore have to sell this labor power of theirs in order to obtain possession of means of subsistence. The value of a commodity is, however, determined by the socially necessary quantity of labor embodied in its production, and, therefore, also in its reproduction; the value of the labor power of an average human being during a day, month or year is determined, therefore, by the quantity of labor embodied in the quantity of means of subsistence necessary for the maintenance of this labor power during a day, month or year.”</p>
<p>Engels continued:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">“Thus the worker in the service of the capitalist not only reproduces the value of his labour power, for which he receives pay, but over and above that he also produces a <em>surplus value</em> which, appropriated in the first place by the capitalist, is in its further course divided according to definite economic laws among the whole capitalist class and forms the basic stock from which arise ground rent, profit, accumulation of capital, in short, all the wealth consumed or accumulated by the non-labouring classes.”</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">(Quotes from Frederick Engels, <em>On Marx</em>)</p>
<p>Marx also built upon classical political economy’s theories of competition. Adam Smith argued that competition among small businesses would make them provide what consumers wanted at low prices - the so-called “invisible hand.” Since competitive markets would be self-regulating, then there is no need for government regulation, leading to the economic policy of laissez-faire, which is the basis for deregulation of industry and free trade policies today. But the reality is that small businesses have been by and large replaced by giant corporations, which can cut costs, raise prices, and even cheat and manipulate their customers, as seen in the ongoing string of scandalous acts of financial and technology giants such as Wells Fargo bank and Facebook.</p>
<p>Marx recognized that a more fundamental role of competition was to force capitalists who exploit their workers to reinvest their profits into expanding their businesses. This accumulation of capital, as Marx called it, is behind the rapid economic growth under capitalism as comparative to previous economic systems, where hundreds of years could pass with little change in the ways people produce the goods and services they needed to live. But under capitalism the production process is constantly changing.</p>
<p>Hand in hand with the accumulation of capital came the constant development of new technologies: from the water and wind power of medieval times to first steam and then electric power, the development of electronic communications starting with the telegraph, then the telephone and radio, and now of course now the internet. The mechanization of agriculture, the application (and misuse) of science to boost food production - all of these driven by fight for ever larger profits.</p>
<p>The accumulation of capital is also behind the rise of giant corporations. This began in basic industry and transport such as iron and steel, oil, and railroads in the latter 1800s and led to the rise of their robber baron owners like Rockefeller and Carnegie. Today this has grown to include retail, restaurants, and the new information technology corporate giants of the internet. Much of the stock market is driven by the so-called FANG stocks of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (now Alphabet) and a new group of today’s robber barons are centered around Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>Last, but not least, Marx was also the first major economist to develop a theory of the business cycle to explain the periodic ups and downs of a capitalist economy. Marx argued that workers are being exploited, that is, they are not paid for the full value that their labor adds to the production of goods and services, which limits their ability to purchase. At the same time, capitalist businesses take the profits from exploitation and reinvest them in expanding production, new techniques that lower the costs of production, and innovating new products, all of which expands their ability to produce. The contradiction, or conflict between restricting consumption while expanding production leads to periodic crisis of overproduction, or what modern economics calls a recession or depression.</p>
<p>This process can be held back by the capitalists lending more and more to their workers, which helps to keep their spending on the rise, but leading to workers going deeper and deeper into debt. At the same time, profits from exploitation can be diverted away from increasing production to lend to workers and to all forms of financial speculation. But this process just shifts the fundamental conflict into the financial realm, ultimately leading to unsustainable build-up in lending and debt and resulting in a financial crisis. We saw this in greatest financial crisis in U.S. history, in September of 2008, and the economic depression that followed.</p>
<p>Lenin summed these processes of accumulation of capital and economic crisis as:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">“The doctrine of surplus-value is the corner-stone of Marx's economic theory.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">Capital, created by the labour of the worker, crushes the worker, ruining small proprietors and creating an army of unemployed. In industry, the victory of large-scale production is immediately apparent, but the same phenomenon is also to be observed in agriculture, where the superiority of large-scale capitalist agriculture is enhanced, the use of machinery increases and the peasant economy, trapped by money-capital, declines and falls into ruin under the burden of its backward technique. The decline of small-scale production assumes different forms in agriculture, but the decline itself is an indisputable fact.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">By destroying small-scale production, capital leads to an increase in productivity of labour and to the creation of a monopoly position for the associations of big capitalists. Production itself becomes more and more social -- hundreds of thousands and millions of workers become bound together in a regular economic organism -- but the product of this collective labour is appropriated by a handful of capitalists. Anarchy of production, crises, the furious chase after markets and the insecurity of existence of the mass of the population are intensified.” (Lenin, <em>The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism</em>)</p>
<p>Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the corporate media has tried to bury Marxism as “dead.” But the economics of Marx (and his other ideas) continues. Marx’s main work on the economy, <em>Capital</em>, published in 1867, continues to be the most highly cited among books published before 1850. The reality of today’s world: the rising gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else, the growing debt and lack of opportunities for more and more young people, the massive financial crisis in 2008, the growing economic influence of socialist China; all point to a renewed interest in Marx’s critique of a capitalist economy.</p>
<p>While much of this is showing up in the rise of social-democracy in the U.S. - such as the Bernie Sanders campaign and the explosion in membership for the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) - these are by and large non- (or in part anti-) Marxist trends of socialism. Activists for social change (including Sanders supporters and those in and around the DSA) need to, now more than ever, seriously study the work of Karl Marx. These include Marx’s view of the capitalist economy, on historical materialism (a scientific view of history and social change), and his views on the fight by oppressed nations and nationalities for liberation, including the U.S. Civil War.</p>
<p>But the development of Marxism did not end with Karl Marx or his life-long collaborator, Frederich Engels. While they laid down the foundations for both a scientific view of the economy, history and social change, and the role of nations and national minorities, as well as other issues, others have continued to develop their work. In particular the contributions of V.I. Lenin in the field of economics is often ignored. Lenin’s <em>Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism</em>, analyzes the modern capitalist economy characterized by giant multinational corporations and a huge financial sector.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/5/3/marx-200-renewed-interest-critique-capitalism#commentsCapitalism and EconomySocialismCapitalismKarl MarxThu, 03 May 2018 21:17:40 +0000Fight Back6701 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgFilm review: Atomic Blondehttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2017/8/3/film-review-atomic-blonde
<p>Houston, TX - During the last elections, Hillary Clinton, who used a sort of bourgeois ‘feminism’ to sell reactionary ideas to the public. Since then, there have been a number of films, such as <em>Wonder Woman</em>, that use images of powerful women to promote a pro-war capitalist agenda. <em>Atomic Blonde</em> is the latest of this genre, which stars Charlize Theron as a kind of female James Bond, who fights communist leaders in the German Democratic Republic, aka East Germany to help the British Intelligence and the CIA stage their famous 1989 coup d’état.</p>
<p>The film is set in 1989 in Berlin right before the counter-revolutionary coup against the socialist government of East Germany. The film reproduces a common theme of Cold War anti-communist propaganda, which makes communists look like impersonal monsters, while portraying the imperialists as heroic. Each communist in the film is portrayed as violent, monstrous and lacking in subjectivity, while the hero of the film, British intelligence agent Lorraine Broughton, is portrayed as clever and intelligent. The plot of the film is extremely simplistic, and is centered around her mission to retrieve a list, the details of which are never revealed. The film mobilizes some very aesthetically pleasant imagery and music to deaden our senses to anti-communist ideas that this film is promoting.</p>
<p>Throughout the film, we see agent Lorraine murdering communists, who are depicted as dangerous and beast-like. The film creates a one dimensional good guy/bad guy framework, where the imperialists are the good guys who help save Germany from communists, who are depicted as the bad people.</p>
<p><em>Atomic Blonde</em> is full of stereotypes about socialism, and particularly East Germany. Although West and East Germany are geographically in the same climate, the West is always depicted as full of light and having a nice climate, while East Germany is depicted as dark and depressing. They don't show the homeless people in West Germany who died during cold winters as a result of capitalism, nor the well-fed people in East Germany who had free healthcare and universal education. Instead, the film depicts the socialist German Democratic Republic as a kind of hell, while depicting West Germany as 'free' and 'democratic.' We don't learn about the heroic anti-fascists in East Germany, and the post-socialist persecution of them. In short, there is no context that would allow the spectator to make a critical analysis of socialism in the German Democratic Republic, which was not a perfect society but most certainly not the type of hell depicted in <em>Atomic Blonde.</em></p>
<p>The film is interlaced with bourgeois newsreels from that period, which show anti-communist protesters in both West and East Germany, with the commentators celebrating their 'resistance.' In<em> Atomic Blonde,</em> the British Intelligence agent Lorraine Broughton helps counter-revolutionaries to overthrow the socialist government of the German Democratic Republic. Having not grown up in that period, I was amazed at how similar this is with our current times, in which the capitalist-controlled media continually shows right-wing protesters in Venezuela who are trying to bring down the democratically elected government of Nicolas Madura.</p>
<p>The worst part about <em>Atomic Blonde</em> is that the film portrays a powerful, independent woman, but all her independence and power is bound up with her job as an agent of British intelligence. She is a female James Bond who can fight, but all the people she fights and kills are communists, who were working to create a society with women's liberation on its agenda. Indeed, the German Democratic Republic was a society where women held important positions in the government, and there was a strong climate in East Germany of fighting against sexism. <em>Atomic Blonde</em> is a film about a woman who does the job of the capitalists to fight against a society that made significant gains for women.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2017/8/3/film-review-atomic-blonde#commentsPeople's StrugglesCultureCapitalismCulturefeminismMoviesmoviesThu, 03 Aug 2017 16:48:17 +0000Fight Back6226 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgRepublicans make federal default a possibilityhttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2017/6/3/republicans-make-federal-default-possibility
<p>San José, CA - On May 24, Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s Secretary of the Treasury and former Wall Street investment banker for Goldman Sachs, urged Congress to raise the federal debt limit before they go on break July 28. The U.S. Treasury first bumped up against the maximum that the U.S. government can borrow back in March, and has been continuing to borrow by using accounting measures.</p>
<p>These tricks were thought to put off the debt limit crunch until the fall, but a drop in tax payments by the wealthy has brought the deadline forward. Ironically, it is Trump and the Republicans in Congress who are proposing big tax cuts for the rich that are leading the rich to hold off paying their taxes.</p>
<p>While Mnuchin has called for a ‘clean’ increase in the debt limit - that is one without attached conditions such as cutting funding for Planned Parenthood - Trump himself has not taken a clear position. Trump’s head of the Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, who is a former member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus, has refused to commit to a clean increase that could attract Democratic support.</p>
<p>The House Freedom Caucus and other republicans in congress have used the debt limit in the past to try to force spending cuts on social programs. They repeated this position this year, hoping to blackmail the government into spending cuts to avoid a default on debt payments.</p>
<p>As a congressman, Mulvaney even suggested that it would not be that bad if the U.S. did not raise the debt limit and defaulted on some of his debt payments. Trump himself, who has declared bankruptcy for his businesses many times, also suggested during his campaign for president that default would not be that bad and that he could negotiate lower payments from government bond owners.</p>
<p>On June 2, Mulvaney said that the government would faces “difficulties” if the debt limit were not increased but swore that there would be no default on debt payments. Unfortunately, this could only be done if the government put off paying its other obligations, of which Social Security and Medicare are among the biggest.</p>
<p>In response, Democrat and House Minority leader Nancy Pelosi did not commit to a clean increase, pointing out that increasing the debt limit could enable the Republicans to give huge tax cuts for the rich that would increase the deficit. In fact, the federal government debt has historically had three causes: First, shrunken tax revenues and increased safety-net spending because of a financial crisis, for example, after the depressions in 1929-1933 and then again from 2008-2009; second, increases in military spending and expensive wars in the 1980s under Reagan, and then again in the 2000s under President George W. Bush; and third, the big tax cuts for the rich in the 1980s and 2000s.</p>
<p>While many in Congress, including both Republicans and Democrats, have talked about cutting Social Security and Medicare to help reign in the federal debt, in fact Medicare has paid for itself and Social Security has run up almost $3 trillion in surplus over the last 30 years. The biggest danger to working people is not that the federal government would default on its debt and cause financial chaos throughout the capitalist world, but that a ‘bipartisan’ plan would trade off raising the debt limit (which Wall Street wants), with cutting Social Security and/or Medicare (which Wall Street also wants).</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2017/6/3/republicans-make-federal-default-possibility#commentsPeople's StrugglesCapitalism and EconomySocialismCapitalismDefaultDonald TrumpRepublicansUnited StatesU.S.Sun, 04 Jun 2017 00:27:42 +0000Fight Back6147 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgMiddle income is not ‘middle class’http://www.fightbacknews.org/2016/1/2/middle-income-not-middle-class
<p>San José, CA - In December of 2015 the Pew Research Center released a report on the decline in middle-income Americans, who now make up a minority of the population, down from 60% in the 1970s. Their share of income has fallen even more, from more than 60% in the 1970s to only 43% in 2014, as upper-income households share has risen from 30% to 49% over the same period of time. The Pew report also has other important information on wealth, debt, occupation and education, which were generally not reported in the mainstream corporate media.</p>
<p>But the report, and to an even larger extent, mainstream corporate media articles on the report, used ‘middle-income’ to mean ‘middle class’ when the two are not the same. Middle-income, in the Pew report, was defined as households earning between two-thirds and twice the median income, or $42,000 to $126,000 a year for a household of three. Middle class refers to those who are between the working class (who have to work for others) and capitalists, who make a living from the businesses, land and financial assets that they own. The middle class would include small businesspeople and farmers, managers and supervisors, as well as high-skilled professionals such as doctors, lawyers and four-year college professors.</p>
<p>Most of the households that the Pew report calls middle-income are in reality working class. Only 20% of middle-income households in 2015 were made up of executives, managers, professionals such as engineers, and medical professionals who could be considered middle-class. The other 80% were more working class occupations such as clerical workers, sales workers, service workers, mechanics and others.</p>
<p>The Pew report also documented the growing inequality in wealth, as defined as the difference between household assets and debt. Between 1983 and 2013, the wealth of lower-income households shrank 18%. The wealth of middle-income households stayed about the same, while the wealth of upper-income households doubled. Another way to put this was that in 1983 upper-income households held 30 times the wealth of lower-income households, but by 2013 upper-income households had 70 times the wealth of lower-income households.</p>
<p>Lower and middle-income households also had their debts rising faster than upper income households as they tried to make up for lost income by borrowing more. Debt for upper-income households rose 90% between 1983 and 2013, while middle-income household debt went up 132%. Lower-income households had the largest increase in debt, which rose 183% or almost tripled between 1983 and 2013.</p>
<p>Teachers were the occupation that lost the most, -8.6, meaning that the percentage of teachers who were low income increased 8.6 percentage points more than the growth of high-income teachers. Factory workers (-6.4) and clerical (-6.2) were other occupations that lost the most ground in terms of income. Not surprisingly, executives and managers were among the occupations that gained the most (+20.4) in terms of more high-income and less low-income households.</p>
<p>College education also became more necessary to earn enough to be middle-income. In 1971, only 24% of middle-income households were headed by someone with some college, the vast majority (76%) had no college and 35% didn’t even graduate from high-school. But by 2015, 60% of middle-income households had at least some college, and only 9% had not graduated from high-school. Despite the rising level of education over the last 45 years, the middle-income household sector has shrunk, showing that more schooling is not the key to</p>
<p>reducing income inequality.</p>
<p>Masao Suzuki is a professor of economics at Skyline College. The Pew report is online <a href="&lt;http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/&gt;">here</a>.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2016/1/2/middle-income-not-middle-class#commentsCapitalism and EconomyCapitalismCommentaryeconomicsEconomy Masao SuzukihousingIncomeSat, 02 Jan 2016 16:38:12 +0000Fight Back5183 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgBusinesses restructuring job market to keep wages down, profits uphttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2015/8/18/businesses-restructuring-job-market-keep-wages-down-profits
<p>San José, CA - In May of 2015, the official unemployment rate was 5.5%, close to the 5.0% rate in December 2007 when the last recession began. But despite what appears to be a recovery in the labor market, wages continue to rise at a very slow rate while profits have soared. In fact, businesses used the recession to continue their restructuring of the labor market in their interests, to the detriment of those who have to work for a living.</p>
<p>A recent study by the<em> Wall Street Journal</em> of 33 metropolitan areas where the official unemployment rate had reached or fallen below the pre-recession rate found that wages were growing much slower than before the recession in two-thirds of the cities. One important factor mentioned in the article is that there is a large number of workers who are out of work but no longer counted as unemployed. This can be seen in the fall in the Labor Force Participation Rate, which gives the percentage of adult workers who are either employed or looking for work. This rate fell from 66.0% in December 2007 to only 62.9% in May 2015. This 3.1% drop represents some 7.5 million people, who if added to the unemployment rate, would push it up by 3 percentage points to 8.5%. While not counted in the official unemployment rate, they represent a pool of potential workers that businesses can hire.</p>
<p>Another factor is that businesses have shifted to using more and more part-time workers, who can be paid less and/or cost less in terms of benefits. The number of part-time workers who would like to work full-time is still 2 million higher than before the recession started. Most of the increase is from workers who say that full-time work is just not available (as opposed to saying that economic conditions are still bad).</p>
<p>This trend towards part-time workers has been taken to the extreme with the growth of the so-called ‘sharing economy’ where companies like Uber don’t even hire their workers, but instead make them contractors. When their expenses are factored in, many Uber drivers earn as little as $10 per hour, only slightly above the minimum wage. Other companies, taking advantage of new human resources computer software, vary their workers hours day-to-day to minimize their costs, but at the expense of the workers lives - for example, they are not able to attend classes or take care of their families.</p>
<p>Another trend has been the growing attacks on public sector workers. The pro-business climate has come full circle, starting with President Reagan’s busting of the air traffic controllers union in the early 1980s, to Scott Walker’s assault on government workers’ unions and passage of ‘Right to Work for Less’ laws in Wisconsin. This pro-business movement has had a disproportionate impact on women and oppressed nationality workers, especially African Americans, who have long pursued government jobs as a path to economic stability. With the ranks of union labor at historically low levels as a percentage of the workforce, workers as a whole suffer from the lack of collective strength that can oppose the business owners’ efforts to push down wages.</p>
<p>The rise of long-term unemployment along with the end of Federal Extended Benefits (EB) and Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) has also weakened workers’ ability to get higher wages. In December 2007, the average length of unemployment was 16.6 weeks, less than the 26 weeks of Unemployment Insurance available from the states. But in May 2015, the average length of unemployment was almost twice as long, at 30.7 weeks, and much longer than state unemployment benefits last.</p>
<p>Over the last eight years, labor productivity or the value produced by an hour’s work, has risen 11%, adjusted for inflation, five times as fast as wages, which have only risen 2.2% after inflation. The difference has gone to corporations and other businesses, whose U.S. profits have soared 50% since 2007. This spectacular rise in profits, despite a lackluster economy, has pushed corporate stocks to record levels and restored all the lost wealth (and more) to the 1% who control most stocks and businesses in the U.S.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2015/8/18/businesses-restructuring-job-market-keep-wages-down-profits#commentsPeople's StrugglesCapitalism and EconomyCapitalismeconomyWed, 19 Aug 2015 00:45:02 +0000Fight Back4942 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgOfficial unemployment rate falls in June, as 432,000 drop out of labor forcehttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2015/7/3/official-unemployment-rate-falls-june-432000-drop-out-labor-force
<p>San José, CA - On July 2, the Labor Department released its report on the job market for June of 2015. The official unemployment rate fell to 5.3% in June from 5.5% in May, the lowest since the early months of the recession in April 2008. In addition, the payroll jobs report showed a gain of 223,000 in June. With unemployment down and job numbers up, the economic expansion continues.</p>
<p>But much of the drop in the unemployment rate came from 432,000 people leaving the labor force. By giving up looking for work, they are no longer counted by the official unemployment rate. Many of those who gave up on the job market came from the ranks of the long-term unemployed (out of work for six months or more) whose numbers fell by 381,000 in June. </p>
<p>The Labor Force Participation Rate, which measures the percentage of adults who are either working or looking for work, fell to 62.6% in June, the lowest rate since 1977, when more women were starting to join the job market. This number is another sign that the economic expansion is still weak, as a strong expansion would draw more people into the labor force.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2015/7/3/official-unemployment-rate-falls-june-432000-drop-out-labor-force#commentsCapitalism and EconomyCapitalismeconomicsLabor Force Participation RateUnemploymentFri, 03 Jul 2015 15:01:05 +0000Fight Back4866 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgEconomy grows but working people don’t benefithttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/9/22/economy-grows-working-people-don-t-benefit
<p>San José, CA - On Tuesday, Sept. 16, the Census Bureau released their annual report on income and poverty for 2013. The report showed that the typical household had a small gain in their income for the first time since 2007. The median household income, at $51,939 was still below that of 1996, when adjusted for inflation. It is still down 8% from 2007 and 8.7% less than its peak in 1999.</p>
<p>A typical household in the lowest one-fifth of the population, making less $22,778 last year, has lost 5.9% of their purchasing power since 1990. On the other hand, the a typical household in the highest one-fifth of the population, making more than $110,000 in 2013, saw a gain of 23% in purchasing power since 1990. And the top 5% of the population saw their typical income gain by 34.5% since 1990.</p>
<p>The Gini index, a standard measure of economic inequality, stayed at a high at 0.476, where zero is perfect equality and one is perfect inequality. This measure has gone up from a low of 0.351 in 1968, for a rise of more than one-third. Actual inequality is probably greater, as the Census Bureau does not count capital gains, which mainly goes to the highest income households, and about half goes to the top 1% who own the majority of corporate stock and privately-held businesses.</p>
<p>The earnings of men working year-round and full-time is still below that of 1973, when adjusted for inflation. While women working full-time and year-round have seen their earnings rise since then, their incomes are still below their 2007 high before the recession started.</p>
<p>The median income for an African American household was only $34,775 last year, or less than 60% of a typical white household. This is about 4% lower than the Black/White income ratio in 2007, showing that African Americans have been hit harder by the recession than whites.</p>
<p>While the official poverty rate did fall slightly in 2013, at 14.5% it is still much higher than the 12.5% count before the recession started in 2007. Over the last three years the poverty rate has been the highest since 1993 when it spiked after the 1991 recession. Before then, poverty has not been as high as it was last year since 1965, almost 50 years ago.</p>
<p>The official poverty rate for African Americans in 2013, at 27.1%, was almost three times as high as the poverty rate for whites, which was only 9.6%. Children continued to have the highest official rate of poverty, which at 19.9% is more than twice as high as the poverty rate for seniors, which was only 9.5%. But this low poverty rate for the elderly is because of Social Security - without Social Security benefits the poverty rate for the elderly would be over 40%, or four times as high! Social Security is even more important for elderly women, whose poverty rate would jump to almost 50% without Social Security benefits.</p>
<p>Because the official poverty measure was developed almost 50 years ago based on data from the 1950s, it undercounts the number of poor. The official poverty line for a family of three (one adult and two children) was only $18,769, or about $1500 per month, not nearly enough to survive on. A relative poverty measurement of households with less than half of the median income would increase the incidence of poverty from by about 50%, to almost 23% of the population.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/9/22/economy-grows-working-people-don-t-benefit#commentsCapitalism and EconomyCapitalismeconomyIncome inequalityUnemploymentMon, 22 Sep 2014 23:42:52 +0000Fight Back4349 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgUnemployment up in 30 states, still no extended unemployment benefitshttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/8/22/unemployment-30-states-still-no-extended-unemployment-benefits
<p>Washington, DC – Unemployment rates ticked upwards in 30 states, according to an Aug. 18 report from the federal government’s U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Ohio, Maryland and South Carolina had the largest job losses. Mississippi has the country’s highest unemployment rate, at 8%. Meanwhile, Congress is in recess until September. </p>
<p>About 3 million workers have lost long-term jobless benefits since emergency unemployment insurance was allowed to lapse in late December 2013. At the time, Democratic leadership failed to insist on including extended unemployment compensation (EUC) in the budget compromise. That gave Republicans veto power over attempts in Congress to restore the program. </p>
<p>Early this year the Senate voted to bring back benefits for the long-term jobless, but the House leadership refused to allow the measure to come to the floor. Many conservative politicians blame jobless workers and unemployment insurance for the persistently high unemployment rates. </p>
<p>Commenting on the impasse in Congress, Steff Yorek of Freedom Road Socialist Organization states, “The fact members of Congress are at home campaigning - instead of addressing the real crisis that unemployed workers are facing - is a searing indictment of the politicians who serve the 1%.”</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/8/22/unemployment-30-states-still-no-extended-unemployment-benefits#commentsCapitalism and EconomyCapitalismExtended Unemployment CompensationFreedom Road Socialist OrganizationSteff Yorekunemployment insuranceworker's rightsSat, 23 Aug 2014 00:29:31 +0000Fight Back4306 at http://www.fightbacknews.orgPFLP salutes the Black struggle in the US: The Empire will fall from withinhttp://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/8/19/pflp-salutes-black-struggle-us-empire-will-fall-within
<p><em>Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Aug. 19 statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP):</em></p>
<p>In light of the police murder of the martyr Michael Brown and the ongoing struggle in Ferguson, Missouri, in the United States, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine salutes and stands firmly with the ongoing struggle of Black people and all oppressed communities in the United States.</p>
<p>Comrade Khaled Barakat said in an interview with the PFLP media outlets that “Police brutality, oppression and murder against Black people in the U.S., and against Latinos, Arabs and Muslims, people of color and poor people, has never been merely ‘mistakes’ or ‘violations of individual rights’ but rather are part and parcel of an integral and systematic racism that reflects the nature of the political system in the U.S.”</p>
<p>“Every time a crime is committed against Black people, it is explained away as an ‘isolated incident’ but when you see the massive number of ‘isolated incidents’ the reality cannot be hidden – this is an ongoing policy that remains virulently racist and oppressive. The U.S. empire was built on the backs of Black slavery and the genocide of Black people – and upon settler colonialism and the genocide of indigenous people,” said Barakat. “The people of Ferguson are resisting, in a long tradition of Black resistance, and we support their legitimate resistance to racist oppression.”</p>
<p>“As people in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Arab World see the brutality of the United States outside its borders, these communities confront its racist and colonial oppression within the borders of the U.S. The two are inextricably linked,” said Barakat. “We also see U.S. exploitation and plunder of people’s resources around the world. And inside the United States, Africans, Latinos, Filipinos, Afghans, Arabs who have suffered war and imperialism at the hands of the United States outside its borders are the same communities who face criminalization, brutality, exploitation, isolation and killings and murder at the hands of the state. We see the targeting of migrants and refugees inside the U.S. after their countries have been ravaged by imperialism, war and exploitation by the same ruling forces.”</p>
<p>Barakat noted that “Mass imprisonment and incarceration has been a central tool of racist control in the United States. One out of every three Black men in the U.S. will be imprisoned; every 28 hours a Black person is killed by the state or someone protected by the state. Palestinians know well the use of mass imprisonment to maintain racist domination and oppression and breaking the racist structures of imprisonment is critical to our liberation movement. We salute Mumia Abu-Jamal and all of the political prisoners of the Black liberation movement in U.S. jails and call for their immediate freedom.”</p>
<p>Furthermore, he said, “since the earliest days of the Black movement in the U.S., from slaves revolting for freedom to the civil rights movement and beyond, Black people, organizations and movements have faced severe state repression, targeting, incarceration and killings at the hands of the state. U.S. domestic intelligence agencies such as the FBI, who target Palestinian and Arab communities for state repression, have for years focused on attacking Black movements, leaders and communities as a central project.”</p>
<p>“Racism, poverty and oppression are the predominant scene faced by oppressed nations and communities in the United States. Black people in the United States are in fact under siege. And just as we demand the end of the siege on our Palestinian people, in Gaza and everywhere, we demand an end to the siege of institutionalized racism and oppression in education, jobs, social services and all areas of life, and support the Black movements struggling to end that siege.”</p>
<p>“When we see the images today in Ferguson, we see another emerging Intifada in the long line of Intifada and struggle that has been carried out by Black people in the U.S. and internationally. The Palestinian national liberation movement salutes the Black liberation movement, and has learned so much from the experiences of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, the Black Panthers, Sojourner Truth, and generations of Black revolutionaries who have led the way in struggling for liberation and self-determination,” said Barakat.</p>
<p>“The struggle inside the United States is an integral part of the struggle against imperialism – in fact it is central, as it is taking place ‘in the belly of the beast.’ This is also the case for the struggle of Indigenous peoples and nations throughout North America, where settler colonial powers have been built through land theft and genocide, yet where indigenous people have always resisted and continue to resist today,” he said.</p>
<p>“Every victory inside the United States and political achievement by popular movements and liberation struggles is a victory for Palestine and a victory for a world of human liberation. Those who think that the fate of people in the United States lies with the ruling class parties, the Republicans and Democrats, until the end of time, are living in an illusion. So too are those who believe Palestine can find freedom by seeking alliances or guarantees by those who oppress Black people,” said Barakat.</p>
<p>“The Black struggle is leading the world in the struggle for an alternative political system that will bring U.S. empire to defeat. We know that this will happen only through struggle, through organization of people, emerging from uprisings and communities rising in anger against injustice,” said Barakat.</p>
<p>“The anti-racist movement and anti-Zionist movement are not and cannot be separated. Fighting against racism means fighting capitalism; fighting against capitalism means fighting for socialism,” Barakat said.</p>
<p>The Front encourages all Palestinians and especially our Palestinian community in the United States, to continue and intensify their efforts in support of the Black liberation movement, from joining actions in support of Ferguson and in honor of Michael Brown, to long-term and sustained joint struggle and mutual solidarity with the Black movement. There are long histories of this work, and it is critical for all of our communities to expand and deepen our links of struggle and solidarity.</p>
<p>The PFLP sends its revolutionary greetings, its solidarity message and its salutes to the struggling people of Ferguson on the front lines confronting U.S. empire, and to the generations upon generations of Black struggle. Our Palestinian liberation movement is part of one struggle with the Black liberation movement. This has been a position of principle for the Front since its founding; we reaffirm this stand today and will always do so until both of our peoples – and our world – are liberated.</p>
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2014/8/19/pflp-salutes-black-struggle-us-empire-will-fall-within#commentsAnti-RacismCapitalismOppressed NationalitiesPalestinePopular Front for the Liberation of PalestineRacismOppressed NationalitiesWed, 20 Aug 2014 01:58:45 +0000Fight Back4297 at http://www.fightbacknews.org